


Crash

by lyndysambora



Series: Absolution [4]
Category: Bon Jovi (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 17:04:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyndysambora/pseuds/lyndysambora
Summary: But Richie had known Jon far too long to mistake the nuances of his voice, even 6,000 miles away. It was the way the man sounded when he was operating from a place of that intense self-restraint he was so good at, but in the caverns below it, where the inconvenient feelings lurked, he was crawling out of his skin, dying for Richie’s touch.





	1. Suitcase

Rome, 1999

Richie stood outside Jon’s suite door and took a deep breath. It hadn’t been that long since they’d seen each other, but it had been too long, something painfully obvious in the tone of Jon’s voice when they’d spoken on the phone. He had tried to sound excited-- and Richie had no doubt he _was_ excited-- about a song he’d been inspired to write. And he wanted Richie to come to Rome immediately and help with it. But Richie had known Jon far too long to mistake the nuances of his voice, even 6,000 miles away. It was the way the man sounded when he was operating from a place of that intense self-restraint he was so good at, but in the caverns below it, where the inconvenient feelings lurked, he was crawling out of his skin, dying for Richie’s touch.

Richie had politely declined the bellhop’s insistence on bringing his suitcase up for him. He had only brought one with him anyway. He didn’t know how long they would be in Rome, but he had a feeling they wouldn’t be leaving the hotel much. He also didn’t want to share the moment Jon opened the door with a stranger. Jon knew Richie would be arriving any time now, and he would be expecting every knock to bring gentle bliss with it. Richie wanted that moment for himself. 

He was greeted with a relieved sigh and the widest smile that made his heart want to fucking explode in his chest. He’d have come all the way to Italy just for this, no question.

“You made it.”

“Yeah.”

Richie pulled his suitcase in behind him and shut the door. Jon’s smile was fading already. He was wearing that _waiting_ look. The wide-eyed waiting look. Like a virgin in a backseat. He was also holding himself in that way that he did, arms crossed over themselves, fingers wrapped around opposite triceps.

Jon sometimes wondered how Richie could read his needs. Richie told him it was intuition. It wasn’t a lie. Some of it was intuition. But more of it was this-- the body code Richie had started memorizing from the very first kiss almost 13 years ago. He still liked to work his way into what his lover needed, though, even if he could read it at a glance. Jon hated the idea of being an open book, and Richie knew how to satisfy that particular need as well.

He pulled Jon’s face up to his with both hands and let his tongue into the other man’s mouth. Jon’s lips yielded in the exact way Richie knew they would, and his arms loosened from their guarded position, snaking up around Richie’s neck. The inkling had been correct-- it was _that_ kind of night. 

Hell, if Richie told the truth, he could tell it in the phone call. 

He moved one of his hands down Jon’s spine, drawing him in tight along every inch. And when he reached his tailbone, Jon raised up on his toes to align their hips before being pulled in, relief and frustration mingling in the soft moan that escaped his lips.

“What do you want?” Richie whispered into the kiss, knowing that Jon wouldn’t answer. He never did. Not on these nights. 

“I don’t know.”

Richie knotted his fingers in the hair at the back of Jon’s skull and pulled his head back, exposing his throat. He felt the rise and fall of the other man’s nervous swallow as he grazed the tip of his tongue down the vulnerable flesh. Pressing his lips into the hollow between Jon’s collarbones, he said, “Are you sure?”

Another soft moan, that reached Richie’s lips before it reached his ears. He slid his hand off Jon’s lower back, creeping around his waist and up under his shirt, fanning his fingertips out over the shivering stomach muscles. 

“Nh-hnh.”

Tracing light lines around Jon’s lowermost ribs, Richie said, “So I flew all this way for ‘I don’t know’?”

It was part of the game, the denial before the release. Jon knew it as much as Richie did, but it still frustrated him, made him squirm against Richie’s touch. Richie had given up thinking that the denial would force Jon into speaking his mind, and had settled for being entertained by the frustration. 

Jon put his hand over Richie’s searching one, guided it upward.

“Oh, so you do know,” Richie said. 

“Stop playing with me.”

“You want me to stop?”

“No! _Rich--_”

Richie pushed Jon face-first against the door and slipped both hands up under his shirt, making excruciatingly light contact with the swollen nipples beneath. He watched Jon’s fingers dig at the wood beneath them, searching for traction, anticipating the weakness in his knees that would soon make standing an impossibility. 

“Why do you fight it so hard?” he whispered, flicking his middle fingertips, circling them, scratching softly. “You know I love giving it to you.”

Jon groaned, and his body began its slow wilting.

“Down we go,” Richie said. He pulled the other man to his knees in front of the abandoned suitcase, and Jon stretched forward, grasping the nylon angles for leverage. Richie shoved a knee up between his friend’s waiting thighs, and searched out his nipples again. Jon’s legs clenched around his, and his body rocked, rubbing against him, chasing relief. It would only take a few seconds. It always did. 

When it was over, Jon pushed Richie to the floor and tore into his pants, sucked him off like a starving man. Then he slumped next to him.

“Tell me,” Richie said, pulling the other man in to the side of his chest and kissing him on top of the head. 

“What?”

“Tell me why you fight it. We’ve been doing it for years.”

Jon shook his head and said nothing. But Richie wasn’t going to let it fade into nothing this time. 

“I wanna know. You don’t fight anything else.”

“If I’d known you were gonna press this, I wouldn’t have called you.”

“Yes, you woulda.”

Sighing, Jon rolled onto his back and put a forearm over his face. Richie propped himself on his elbow. 

“Tell me.”

“Tell you _what?_ How it still makes me feel like I’m the chick, but I can’t stop wanting it?”

“We been through this. A lot of times.”

“I know. So why do you keep asking me?”

“Cuz I don’t get it. I like it, too, and you don’t see me having a crisis over it every time.”

Jon said nothing, and Richie was on the verge of letting it slide, yet again, because he could think of nothing else to add to the eternal impasse. Then a thought pelted him, out of nowhere, something that had never occurred to him before, but suddenly connected so many disparate dots that he knew the answer before he even asked the question. 

“Do you wanna be the chick sometimes?”

For a moment, there was nothing, not even a flinch. And then Jon turned his head to face him. His eyes were hard. “Fuck you.”

“I’m not trying to be a dick. I’m serious. It’s just you and me here.”

“Well, how the fuck do you expect me to react, huh? You fucking say something like that to me--”

“No, I pretty much expected that ‘fuck you’.”

“Good.” Jon put his arm over his face again and exhaled. “Consider about ten more of them thrown at you.”

Richie wiggled in close to him and laid an arm over his chest. “Do you think it would change things between us if you said yes? Outside the bedroom, I mean.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I wanna know what you want. I wanna give you what you want.”

“And what I want is to be a chick? That’s what you’re saying?”

“I’m not saying anything. I’m asking you how it is I can play with your tits for... how long is it now? Thirteen years? And--”

“Why do you say it like that?”

“What?”

“Play with my tits.”

“Because that’s what I’m doing?”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“And you’re fighting this way too hard. It’s a simple question.”

“It’s not a simple question.”

Nuzzling in closer to him, Richie said, “Talk to me.” After a moment, he could feel the thumping of his friend’s heart under his arm. 

“Yeah. Sometimes I wonder. Okay? You feel better?”

“Tell me about it,” Richie said. But he already knew by the way Jon’s jaw was tensed that the conversation was over for the night. He kissed the other man again on the head and said, “Tell me about the song.”


	2. Mixed Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie had made a decision. He was gonna give Jon the glorious gift of not giving a flying fuck.

Richie lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, vacillating between the tenuous high of being on the verge of a new and exhilarating and frightening experience, and the nausea of knowing for certain he’d made a huge mistake. 

Jon had told him about the song idea the night before. It was about a couple-- two of the most fucked-up people you’d ever want to meet. And yet, you’d also be them if you could. Desperately in love with each other, and full of freakish ways of expressing it. People who just didn’t give two shits what anybody else thought about them. 

Richie had noticed how wistful Jon had gotten at the idea of being able to not care what anybody thought. To do whatever in the fuck you please, whenever you please. They’d ordered a couple bottles of wine from room service, and Richie had prodded that sore spot just a little. That wistfulness. The more Richie pushed that spot, the drunker Jon got. And the more he talked. And eventually it came back up. 

_do you wanna be the chick sometimes?_

First it came back up like memory vomit-- with anger and a lot of _fuck you_s-- and then something happened to it. It began to soften around the edges. Began to subside into something Jon could get his mind and his mouth around, and he had said, “I don’t know what it means, though.”

Richie had massaged the back of Jon’s neck as he spoke, his index finger and thumb probing the tense bands of muscle there. The words Jon spoke began to slur with the dual relaxation of the manipulation and the drink, and he’d started to wonder aloud what it meant, what it _could_ mean to “be the chick” in bed, when you were a man. 

And not just a man, but an alpha male. 

This had been followed by a turn of mood, and another couple of _fuck you_s, and Richie had put his glass of wine down, engaged both hands so that he could massage Jon’s shoulders while he mused. 

Jon, it turned out, had curiosities. 

The funny thing was, it wasn’t even all that weird. People did it all the time. _Guys_ did it all the time. Or they wanted to, and were too afraid to try it. Maybe they didn’t ever own up to it, but the curiosity was there. Richie had told Jon this. That the things he was tiptoeing around, creeping up on in broken, resentful sentences, just weren’t all that bizarre. 

But to Jon, it was a big deal. A really big deal. So big he drank almost a whole bottle of wine himself in the immediate aftermath of the confession, while making increasingly garbled verbal lists of all the ways it was a problem, and that Richie should think he was a freak for it.

Richie had called room service again and ordered food.

After eating (and after Richie had dumped the remaining wine out the window into a row of oleander bushes while Jon was in the bathroom), Jon began to make a tentative peace with the whole thing. Just because a curiosity exists, he reasoned, doesn’t mean it has to be acted upon. And that counted for _something_, didn’t it?

But Richie had watched the way he had begun fidgeting at that. As his mind had calmed down, settled into the familiarity of self-restraint again, his body had started quietly rebelling. He rubbed at the spaces between his fingers as though they itched; his toes curled repeatedly into the carpet. Richie thought about the song, and about the characters Jon both mocked and envied. Fucked-up people who could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Who were allowed to express their love-- and their desires-- in any way they saw fit, without shame or fear of judgment. Especially from one another. 

And Richie had made a decision. He was gonna give Jon the glorious gift of not giving a flying fuck. 

The next morning, not knowing where to even begin, for a variety of reasons, he had taken the concierge aside and spoken to her in private. Told her he was looking for a “special gift” for a lady friend. Lingerie. Of... some kind. He didn’t know what. 

The concierge, whose name was Elena, and who was beautiful enough to make Richie want to absolutely die while trying to have the suddenly regretted conversation, said to him, “Do you know your lady friend’s sizes?” She was unfazed, and immediately taking notes.

“Um...”

“No?”

“I-- no. Well?” Richie had felt the blood light up his face like Christmas morning. He thought he saw a flicker of a smile in Elena’s dark eyes, but her lips remained serious. 

“May I venture a guess?” she said.

“Um-- excuse me?”

“Your lady friend,” Elena said. “She is... just slightly shorter than you are. With broad shoulders, for a woman. But flat-chested.”

Still no smile. But a cocked eyebrow, and the pencil poised at the little notebook in her hand. Richie sighed, and he didn’t know whether it was with embarrassment or relief.

“Yeah,” he said.

Not looking up from the words she was scribbling, Elena said, “Will your lady friend require any accessories?”

“Accessories?”

“Jewelry, shoes, wigs, makeup, et cetera.”

“Oh! No. I don’t think so. Wait... um. Makeup?”

“I can have a few basic items delivered that I believe will be to your lady friend’s liking. Does that sound good to you?”

“Um, yeah. I’m not really sure--”

“I will take care of everything, Mr. Sambora. That is why I’m here.” She finally allowed the smile that had been threatening to break through.

Richie had sighed again, and this time he was sure it was relief. “Thank you,” he had said. 

Now, he lay in the thick dark, listening to Jon’s breathing as he slept off the remnants of the wine, and wondering if the “gift”, which was due to arrive tomorrow afternoon, was quite possibly the dumbest thing he’d ever done.


	3. Big Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And as he sat on the edge of the bed staring into the box, the first thing that crossed his mind was, _Exactly how much did I drink last night?_
> 
> The second thing that crossed his mind was, _I hope Richie is enjoying his last day on earth_

Jon put his head under the bathroom spigot and turned on the tap. Cold water burst over the back of his scalp, sending shards of pain through his skull, but he didn’t flinch. The water ran over and around his ears, down over his face, threatening to snake up into his nostrils, and still he didn’t move. 

Richie was a dead man. 

The pain turned to numbness, and the satisfaction of it dissolved. Jon turned the faucet off and stood, letting the water cascade down him and onto the floor. His hair-- short now for the movie, and driving him insane for the sheer strangeness of having it that short-- stuck in strings to his forehead. He shoved it back off his face and studied his reflection in the mirror. 

He was still pale, but the hangover circles were almost gone. He’d woken up early, but fell back to sleep late in the morning, the ghost of the barrel of wine he’d drunk the night before still heavy enough on him to prevent normal functioning. At some point, Richie had announced he was going for a walk, or sightseeing or something; Jon wasn’t sure exactly what the story was, as he was half asleep, and though he wasn’t certain, he thought the story changed at least once before Richie actually made it out the door. He had told Richie to hold on, that he’d have a coffee and get dressed and come with him, but Richie had seemed agitated and in a hurry, and Jon didn’t feel like going for a damn walk anyway, so he’d rolled over and gone back to sleep.

Until a fucking bellhop had shown up at his suite door with a package. Jon had insisted that he had ordered nothing, but the bellhop was adamant that the package belonged to this suite, per instructions from the concierge. Jon took the package and made an attempt to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t deal with the existence of the mystery box sitting unopened in the suite with him. So he had opened it. 

And as he sat on the edge of the bed staring into the box, the first thing that crossed his mind was, _Exactly how much did I drink last night?_

The second thing that crossed his mind was, _I hope Richie is enjoying his last day on earth._

Then he had put the lid carefully back on the box, as though restoring it with the proper courtesy would negate the fact he had even touched it in the first place, and headed straight for the bathroom sink to drown himself.

He grabbed a towel and rubbed at his head and neck, and shuffled back into the bedroom, where the box was waiting, polite as you please, on the bed right where he’d left it. Dropping face-first next to it, Jon laid still until the bedding started smothering him, and he turned his head. Saw the box again. His hand lurched in the direction of it, filled with an instinct just to touch it, to ascertain its stupid reality. After a minute of fighting the urge, he rolled up on his ass and kicked the thing onto the floor. There. That was better. He laid back down on his belly.

What was Richie thinking? Was it a joke? It didn’t make sense as a joke, did it? And Richie wasn’t that cruel. 

Jon squirmed across the bed and hung his face off the edge. The box was intact, refusing to give up its secrets, even under duress. The thought made Jon’s lips twitch, almost smile a little, but not quite. The box was a little bit like himself. Maybe it needed a truckload of wine poured into it.

Was Richie turned on by the idea? The thing Jon had scraped off the underbelly of his consciousness and exposed to the light for the first time in his life-- had Richie taken it and turned it into nothing more than an invitation? The thought flared a sickness in the pit of Jon’s body, something deeper than nausea, and it took him a bit to recognize it as the kernel of betrayal. But as soon as he recognized it, it passed. That wasn’t Richie, either. Maybe it did turn him on. But it never would have been distilled into a mere kink opportunity.

Dropping an arm off the side of the bed, Jon nudged at the box lid, skewing it an inch or so out of square. What a fucker. How fucking brazen did he have to be to do something like this? He couldn’t possibly have cared one single bit about what Jon’s reaction was going to be. Or maybe he did, and that’s why he was currently out “sightseeing”. 

This time Jon did smile. Well, at least Richie had the good sense to be embarrassed-- or terrified-- about what he’d done. And what _had_ he done, anyway? Plied Jon with wine and one of the neck rubs he was so damn good at until Jon spilled out one of the most humiliating secrets he had-- something nobody else on the planet knew about him, and never would-- and then less than 24 hours later made an audacious move that forced Jon to consider the actual shapes the secret took? 

“_God._ Fucker,” Jon murmured, poking the lid of the box further askew. The contents just began to show through the slit he made, and he rolled over on the bed, grabbed the phone. Dialed Richie’s cell phone. 

Richie picked up almost immediately, but said nothing.

Jon said, “Well, did you tip her good, at least?”

An exhale. “Ohh yeah. Are you mad?”

“Yes. Are you still in Italy?”

“Should I be?”

Despite himself, Jon laughed a little. “What the fuck, man?”

“I don’t know. I just thought... I don’t know.”

They were silent for a minute, then Jon said, “Are you coming back?”

“Do you want me to?”

Rolling back over, Jon stared at the box again. Ran his fingertips along the opening he’d created along the edge of it, allowed them to brush the contents. “I still think you’re a fucker. But we have a song to write.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

But a thought blossomed in Jon’s head, and he almost laughed, but stifled it just in time. He didn’t have many cards to hide anymore, but there were maybe one or two left for him to play.

“No, you know what?” he said. “Don’t come back just yet. I wanna get ready for you.”

Silence again. Then, “Are you... serious?”

“Of course.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“Just give me--” Jon glanced at the clock. “Give me ‘til 6, okay? Then come back.”

“You’re fucking with me.”

“I will be.”

“I-- what?”

“6 o’clock,” Jon said, and hung up. 

Then he laughed until he could barely breathe. Richie was expecting to be pranked. That was good, because he deserved it. 

_you’re fucking with me_

The question was, what was Richie’s definition of being fucked with?


	4. Dressed Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie stood outside Jon’s suite door, attempting to collect himself, and feeling an overwhelming sense of deja vu. Except this deja vu was accompanied by the biggest clusterfuck of dread, confusion, and what he knew was the tingly beginnings of arousal, though he was trying like hell to pretend _that_ shit wasn’t there... The simple fact was, he’d fucked up, and now Jon was gonna have his fun with him.

When he found her, she had her back to him, bidding goodbye to what he assumed was another hotel guest. Which was perfect, because it allowed him to slide up silently, and stand eight inches behind her, smiling like a weirdo, and wait. 

He was not disappointed.

“_Shit,”_ she said, when she turned around, her hand flying to her chest. “Oh! I’m _sorry_. I didn’t mean to be crass. How are you, Mr. Bon Jovi?”

“I am _splendid_, Elena,” Jon said, still smiling his weirdo smile. “And you?”

“I am well, thank you for asking. Is there something I can help you with, sir?”

“You mean besides my latent freak tendencies? Because you have a knack for that, you know?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“Cut the shit, Elena.”

“It is my job to fulfill the requests of the hotel’s clientele. All requests that are within my power to fulfill. To the best of my ability, and with full discretion.” 

“Guess what request I want you to fulfill right now.”

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Bon Jovi, but I don’t believe the box will fit up my ass.”

Because her face was perfectly straight, it took a moment for the answer to sink in. When it did, Jon laughed, despite bitter effort not to.

“Ahh. I hate you, Elena. You know that, right?”

“That’s not what I want to hear. What can I do to make your stay better?”

\----------------------------------------

Richie stood outside Jon’s suite door, attempting to collect himself, and feeling an overwhelming sense of deja vu. Except this deja vu was accompanied by the biggest clusterfuck of dread, confusion, and what he knew was the tingly beginnings of arousal, though he was trying like hell to pretend _that_ shit wasn’t there. He had no clue what Jon had meant on the phone, and even if he did (and he had run through ALL the scenarios in the time he’d been wandering the streets of Rome, wishing he could find a magic hole to crawl into and disappear), he had no clue how Jon was expecting him to respond. The simple fact was, he’d fucked up, and now Jon was gonna have his fun with him. So it was definitely not the time for that fucking _tingling_ to start. He had to be ready to appear properly chastened. If that’s what the situation called for. Which he didn’t know yet.

Richie groaned and let his forehead drop against the door. Well, the tingle was gone, at least. He let himself in. 

No sign of Jon in the living room, and his guitar cases were gone, too. Richie was suddenly made brutally aware of how weirded out he was by the fact he was unwilling to just call out to Jon to find out where he was. If he was even there. It was that, Richie realized, that was weaving the knot in his stomach. It was perfectly quiet in the suite, and Jon’s guitar cases were gone.

He closed the door behind him, silently, and shuffled through the room, hoping to pick up a hint about what was happening somewhere along the way before he was ambushed by... _something_. Criticism? Disappointment? God. Anything but that.

And again, he stood with his hand on a doorknob, this one to the master bedroom, feeling every possible thing rage inside him, but this time he couldn’t handle the waiting for another moment, and he pushed the door open.

Jon was sitting on the edge of the bed, on leg crossed over the other, guitar propped on his thigh but slung slightly to the side, as he was focused on the notebook laying on the bed next to his opposite hip. He casually crossed something out, then thought for a moment and scribbled something else in its place before pulling the guitar back into position and locating a few chords. His hair was wet, like he’d just gotten out of the shower, or a bath, or something, and it was pushed back off his face and, oh yeah, he was also wearing a fucking bra and white fucking stockings complete with garters. 

Richie didn’t so much _lean_ against the door frame as sort of just... _tip into_ it. 

Jon looked up. “Oh hey,” he said. “I had a few thoughts on the song.” His eyes were rimmed in black. And not just rimmed, like Richie had seen and obsessed over a million times in their youth-- this was thick and perfect and drawing out to points at his temples like some painting of an Egyptian deity. “I think if I go to an A minor right here in the chorus,” he said, “it’ll be the sound I want, but I’m not sure what I want the words to be right there.”

“Uh--”

“Something wrong?”

“Um--”

“Oh!” Jon said, laying his guitar aside on the bed and standing up. He stretched his arms out wide and turned slowly on the spot, pausing with his back to Richie, and glanced back over his shoulder. He was wearing lacy black panties underneath a white garter belt. “What do you think? Did I find my next Halloween costume?”

“I-- I, um... I don’t know. I got the Fourth of July up in my head right now.”

Jon turned back to face Richie. He cocked a hip out and plunked a hand on it. “Is that a good thing?”

“What do you want to hear?”

Smiling that crooked half smile, Jon crossed the room, and every muscle in Richie’s body tightened. Jon draped his arms around the other man’s neck. “Are you afraid of me?”

“A little.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you’re having fun right now... and I don’t know what kind of fun you’re having.”

Jon let his hand graze down the length of Richie’s arm, down his wrist, caressed his fingers. “That’s pretty narrow thinking for you,” he said. Then he picked up Richie’s hand and pressed it against his own ass. Richie’s heart stuttered. “There are all different kinds of fun. Who says I gotta pick just one at a time?” 

Richie squeezed his ass with both hands and pulled him in, feeling both the melting of Jon’s body into him, and the beginnings of a nervous-- or excited-- buzzing in him. He also felt Jon opening his thighs a little against his. Fucking Christ. 

“Do I get to have fun with you, too?” Richie asked, and Jon groaned from somewhere deep inside. 

“You better,” he said, pushing his hips deeper against his friend’s. Then, “I wanna play the chorus for you, and you tell me what you think about the A minor, okay?”


	5. Car Crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon straddled Richie’s lap, pushing his hips in until their bodies were molded together. Richie’s fingers found the backs of his thighs, and slid beneath the garter straps. 
> 
> “Say it,” Jon breathed. “I wanna hear it again.”

Richie closed the bedroom door behind him as he watched Jon saunter back toward the bed. There was really no reason to close the door, but his hands did it anyway, shuttering them into this anonymous space together. The curtains were already drawn.

Jon crawled into bed on all fours, slowly, his lower back arched so as to poke his ass out. The straps of the garter belt painted curving lines against his hips and just under the round of his ass, down the backs of thighs that were oddly bare.

“Did you shave your legs?” Richie asked, physically pushing himself away from the door to make himself move. 

Twisting over in the bed, so that he was stretched as catlike as his eyes were made up, Jon bit the tip of his finger. “Maybe,” he said. Then he smiled. “Our friendly concierge gave me pointers.”

Richie stopped, midway to his quarry. “You-- okay...”

Jon rolled up on his elbow and leaned forward a little. “You wanna touch 'em?” he asked, his voice lowered, secretive. “I’ll let you.”

A breath Richie didn’t know he’d been holding slithered out of him. “What about the chorus?” he said. “You were gonna play me the chorus.”

It took willpower bordering on physical strength to say it, but he said it. Jon’s eyes narrowed a little, making the eyeliner appear even more a flawless stroke. His lashes were thickly glazed with mascara just as black.

“I did, didn’t I?” he said. He sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed, crossed one leg over the other again. He patted the space next to him. “Well, come over here.” Leaning back on his palms, he waited. 

Richie did his best to cross the room on legs that weren’t visibly shaking, at least. He pulled off his jacket as he walked, tossed it over a chair, and nudged off his shoes. Jon scrutinized every move with those blackened eyes, and what seemed like the slightest of smirks etching lips that, Richie now noticed, were untouched by makeup. 

A vision flickered in Richie’s mind of grabbing Jon by the nylon-slickened thighs and yanking his ass to the edge of the bed, pushing his knees back to his shoulders, and pulling the panties down with the garter straps still in place.

He felt his knees give just a little bit, so he shoved the thought out of his head, and sat down next to Jon. The other man leaned in close to him, in such a way as a woman might casually press her breasts against his arm. His chest was as bare as his legs.

“Remember the night we started writing ‘I’ll Be There For You’?”

“How could I forget?”

“You know? Sometimes I still think about,” Jon purred, his fingertips grazing up and over the hardness beneath Richie’s zipper, before hooking into his waistband behind the button. “The way your voice sounded when you said, ‘Tell me you want me, Jonny.’ It does something to me.” Plucking the button open and dragging the zipper down, he added, “I still think about it, sometimes, when you’re not around, and I’m touching myself.”

Richie groaned. “You’re not gonna play me the song, are you?”

“I can’t concentrate right now. Can you?”

“Probably not.”

“Why are you resisting me?”

“I don’t know. I feel like I’m supposed to.”

“Do you want to resist me?”

“Fuck, no.”

Jon straddled Richie’s lap, pushing his hips in until their bodies were molded together. Richie’s fingers found the backs of his thighs, and slid beneath the garter straps. 

“Say it,” Jon breathed. “I wanna hear it again.” His own hands clutched at the back of Richie’s neck, as the rest of him writhed with impatience.

Pulling him in hard, Richie said, “Tell me you want me, Jonny.”

Jon moaned, rubbing against him. “Oh god, I want you.”

“You didn’t say that last time,” Richie said. “You pushed me off.”

“I know.”

“Tell me what else you want, Jonny.”

Just like he knew the tone of his lover’s voice in the phone call, and the flavor of his touches, and the inflections of the language of his body, Richie knew he would say it this time, that he would confess the need out loud.

“I want you to play with my tits.”

“Ohh. Good boy,” Richie said, tightening his hold under Jon’s legs. “Now that is something _I’ll_ replay in my head for the next thirteen years.” He stood up and Jon scrambled to readjust his grip on his neck, wrapped his legs around the other man’s waist. Richie could feel the breathlessness in his kiss. 

He turned to face the bed and kneeled on it, letting Jon down slowly on his knees. “Turn around, baby,” he said. Jon complied, and Richie nuzzled up behind him, kissing the crook of his shoulder, letting his thumb hook under the delicate little bra strap so close to his lips. 

Jon shivered. The hair at his nape was drying now, and Richie buried his nose in it and breathed in, before pressing a soft kiss against the curve at the base of his friend’s neck. He hitched his other thumb under the second bra strap and took them both down, letting them drape against Jon’s arms. Another shiver, except this one didn’t end-- it tapered down into a soft vibration of restlessness. 

Richie moved his hands up beneath Jon’s arms, feeling the way the added pressure locked the man’s elbows into the straps, immobilizing him. He fanned the flats of his fingers upward over Jon’s waiting nipples, and basked in the way it drew his lover’s body upward too, back arching so that his head rolled back onto Richie’s shoulder. 

“You like that?”

“Yes...”

Catching the tiny bumps between his thumb- and fingertips, Richie said, “Are you gonna apologize for liking it this time? Or ever again?”

“No-- god... no--”

Richie squeezed a little harder, evoking a whimper, and this time he felt Jon’s body bearing down. His thighs spread, and his pelvis pushed downward toward a relief that wasn’t there.

“Good,” Richie said, and flicked his fingertips. Jon arched again and grasped Richie’s wrists, but made no effort to stop him. 

And for what felt like hours or maybe only minutes, Richie wasn’t sure, he lost himself in the feel of the other man’s body rippling against him, the alternating pleasure sounds, the whimpers, and the breaths that turned into helpless moans on almost every exhale. The way Jon’s fingers were clutched into the bones of Richie’s wrists, as if to stop him at any moment, or direct him, but never doing either, only leaving his wrist once to fidget between his own legs for a moment. Richie imagined he was freeing his cock from the torture-hold of the underwear.

Then he was pushed up against Richie, grinding his ass against Richie’s own cock. Richie pulled out from under him so he wouldn’t come in his pants, and Jon was spreading his thighs again, pushing down, bending at the waist now. God, he needed to come so bad, and Richie almost shoved him forward, offered his knee again for Jon to ride, but instead he pulled him back against himself, and pinched the swollen peaks beneath his fingers, rolling them. 

“I ain’t fucking stopping,” he whispered, and he felt the breath catch in Jon’s chest. The precious one second, two seconds of utter paralysis and silence before a cry bordering on screaming rushed out of him, and he shuddered against Richie’s body. When he finally stilled, except for the pitching of his breathing, Richie spread his hands over his ribs and drew him in tight.

“Did you get off?” he asked, trying his best to sound cool about it.

“Yeah,” Jon said. “I just-- I can’t--”

“It’s good, baby. It’s so good.”

Richie held him for a few moments, rocked him, feeling the man’s breathing slow. Then he said, “I’m sorry for how I went about things.”

“It’s okay.”

“I just wanted to get to here, and I didn’t know how. It was like watching a car crash you can’t do anything to stop.”

To his surprise, Jon laughed. “Your comic book name is Captain Crash, then.”

“Ugh,” Richie said. “I don’t know how I feel about that. Do I have a cool super power, at least?”

Jon allowed his body to melt back into Richie’s as he thought. Finally, he said, “Your super power is you’re not afraid of talking about shit. Even when it’s embarrassing as fuck.”

Richie puckered his lower lip. “I don’t know how good a tagline that is, but I’ll take it.”


	6. Playing Superman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon’s eyes rolled back as Richie slowly pushed his thighs upward. “I can’t stop you,” he breathed. “I can’t ever stop you...”

Jon watched his guitarist’s fingertips press into the steel of the strings, tempering the callouses that felt so good in so many ways on his body. He remembered every detail about the first time those fingertips had tasted him-- creeping uninvited under his shirt, phantom touches through a haze of wine and good weed and _All Things Must Pass_. 

“Jonny? What’s on your mind?”

“How much do you love me?”

“I came to Italy to make love to you.”

The gentle rumination was shattered. “You did not! You came to help with the song.”

Richie laughed, his hands blunting the ring of the strings. “Jonny. You know why I came.”

Snorting softly, Jon laid down, stretching out over the now-dried puddle he had left in the bedding. Richie propped his guitar on the floor and laid next to him, pulled him close, drawing a sigh of relief from Jon’s lungs.

“Would you take a bullet for me?”

“Of course.”

“Give me a kidney?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“Would you...” Jon popped his head up and grinned. “Share a toothpick with me?”

“_What?_ Am I saving your life by sharing this toothpick?”

“No. It’s just the last toothpick.”

“Then no. I’ll wait til I find some floss.”

Laying his head down, Jon said, “You disappoint me.”

“Some things are just better left unshared.”

“You lick my teeth.”

“Kissing is different from sharing toothpicks, you mental patient.”

“You lick my ass, too. Routinely.”

“That is _entirely_ different.”

“If you say so.”

On a whim, Jon rolled sideways and hung half off the bed, looking into the gift box that was now sitting open and partially scattered. He grabbed a small silver cylinder and rolled back against Richie. 

“_Lipstick,_ by the way?”

“Call it temporary insanity.”

Jon plucked the cap off the tube and rolled the stick up. It was a deep pinkish-red, the precise shade of overripe raspberries. “How’d you know my color?” he teased.

“Elena is very good at her job.”

“I wonder how many times she’s done this,” Jon mused, then took a swipe at his lower lip. He’d worn gloss before, on stage, many times, and Chapstick in the winter, but never color. He rubbed his lips together, and smiled big at Richie. “How’s it look?”

Richie laughed. “How is it you have it on your teeth already?”

Handing the tube over, Jon said, “Let’s see how you do with it, King Makeover.”

“All right,” Richie said, and reached for Jon’s face. Jon shrunk back into the pillows. 

“Whoa! Not on me. I already got mine. Do it on yourself.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanna make fun of you, too.”

“Fine,” Richie said, dabbing at his lips with wedge-tip of the lipstick. He filled in the corners of his mouth, and his Cupid’s bow, almost without error. Jon snatched the lipstick back from him.

“Fucker, you practiced that.”

“I swear I didn’t! But I’ve watched it being done enough times.” 

Jon twisted the lipstick down into its tube and put the cap on. Then he flicked his eyelids up and pinned his friend with a stare. “You know where else this particular shade would look good?” 

He yanked the front of Richie’s pants open, and pulled the man’s cock out, rubbing it hard a few times until it was fully stiff. “I’m feeling a sudden need to mark my territory.”

Richie groaned, and Jon sunk his painted mouth onto his quarry, making deep sweeps until he tasted the lipstick all through his saliva. He pulled off and admired his handiwork. A ring of bright color lay just below the head of Richie’s dick where Jon had first laid lips on him, and subtle streaks of the raspberry hue washed over the rest of it. “See?” he said, waving toward his masterpiece. “We share lots of things, huh?” 

Richie groaned again and flipped Jon on his back. “Speaking of sharing things,” he said, “we never finished our talk from before.”

“What talk?” Jon said, his hands sliding over the balls of Richie’s shoulders. 

Richie’s hand crept over the silky-bare skin of Jon’s thigh, up under the tether of the front garter strap. “You were talking about me licking your ass. You like it when I lick your ass, don’t you?”

“You know I do.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’? It feels good,” Jon said, his knee drawing up almost reflexively for his leg to receive more of the other man’s wandering touch. 

Richie’s fingers slid under the hem of the stocking, seeking out the tender inner thigh flesh beneath. “And?”

“And what?”

“What else do you like about it?”

Pulling in a shivering breath, Jon said, “I like... giving myself over to you...”

“Mmm. Tell me more.”

“I like...” Jon started, but his voice trailed when he felt the roughened fingertips he knew so well dragging over the lace-covered crotch of his panties. 

“Keep going.”

“I like...”

“Mm-hm?”

“I like being all yours--”

Richie pushed his hand beneath Jon and pulled the back of the panties down. “You’re always all mine,” he said. “What’s special about me licking your ass?”

Jon’s eyes rolled back as Richie slowly pushed his thighs upward. “I can’t stop you,” he breathed. “I can’t ever stop you...”

“Mmm...” Richie dipped down and hooked Jon’s lower legs over his shoulders. “You can’t stop me? Why not?”

“Oh god-- because... because it’s so good. It’s so bad and it’s so good, and it’s just...”

Scooping Jon’s ass up in his hands, Richie pulled him closer and placed tiny, teasing kisses over the man’s inner thighs. “Just what?” he murmured against the skin.

“Ohh, god--”

“Just what?”

“It’s like I’m helpless to it--”

Richie buried his face in Jon’s ass, and Jon seized handfuls of blankets to keep himself steady. His whole body lurched into the sensation, almost too intense to be pleasurable. Richie was going deep, biting and sucking hard, and a moan was ripped from Jon’s throat with such force it became something akin to a growl. When he managed to untangle the fingers of one of his hands from the bedding, he plunked it into Richie’s hair and squeezed, and it occurred to him, for a moment before his thoughts scattered again, how very like a spirited bout of pussy-eating their positions must have looked right that second. 

He had never come from having his ass eaten alone, and he started to wonder if it was possible...

Richie pulled off, and Jon sucked a breath into himself. 

“You’re _my_ territory,” Richie said. “You better always remember that.”

“I will,” Jon panted. 

“Now,” Richie said, grazing his fingers over the tortured hardness of Jon’s dick still stuffed inside the panties’ confines, “since you’re convinced I flew all the way here just to work on the song, you want me to do that right now? Or you want me to fuck you silly?”

“Fuck me, please,” Jon said, batting his heavy eyelashes.

“You need me to rescue this sad cock of yours from this medieval bullshit?”

“Mmm.”

Richie pulled the panties down as far as the garter straps would allow and caressed Jon’s dick. 

Jon shuddered. “My hero,” he breathed, and opened his arms to receive Richie on top of him.

**END**


End file.
